Lateral Thinking in Marketing

Marketing Plan can be defined as a written plan or document that refers to the particular organizations adaptation of a particular marketing strategy. It can also be defined as the written plan of a company that underlines the various marketing activities that the company would undertake in the following months or weeks. A marketing plan must include general information like for example, the particular service or product that is being offered by the organization, the pricing of the product or service, the target market, that in other words means the market in which the product or service is being proposed to be sold, and important information about the different competitors who offer similar products and services, and the marketing budget, that is the amount of money or finances that has been earmarked for the purpose of this particular marketing plan.

The success of a well-planned and well-executed marketing plan depends on the amount of interest the intended customer shows in the plan. Therefore, the marketing plan must be able to generate more than ordinary interest in the customer so that the intended target of the plan would be achieved. This means that the marketing plan must specify all the various actions that the company intends to take to make the customer get interested in the product or the service in such a way that he would like to buy that product or service without much persuasion. If the marketing plan is to be successful, then the marketing strategy must also be well written and planned, since the marketing plan is nothing but the implementation of the marketing strategy. It is the marketing strategy that is responsible for providing the targets and the goals for the marketing plan, and also the path to be taken in future. A marketing plan can either be an individual document or can also be a part of the entire marketing strategy of the company.

In general, a marketing plan will include the following: the various products and services that are being offered under the particular marketing plan, the USP or the Unique Selling Proposition of the products that are being offered to the customer, the Pricing Strategy for those products and services, the Sales Plan and also the Distribution Plan for the various services and products, and the total Advertising and Promotional Plans for them. The marketing plan must also include details about the target market, and also, most importantly, details about the competition, which will be contained in the 'Competitive Analysis' part of the marketing plan.

The first step to be taken when sitting down to write a business plan is to conduct a thorough analysis and examination of the intended or the target market, that in other words defines the people who the company wants to sell the products and services to. Not all the people in the particular city or area would be interested in buying the particular product being offered by the company and this is why the specific customer would have to be analyzed and the plan be molded according to this customer. In addition, the number of such customers has to be researched, and a projection has to be made about the numbers, while keeping in mind the fact that these numbers may change due to various reasons like market trends and marketing policies.

The secret of the success for a marketing plan depends on the amount of time and resources that have been spent on 'research'. Research is important in all aspects and in all areas of the plan. In this case, the target market has to be thoroughly analyzed on the basis of these points: how old are the intended customers, and what gender do they belong to, what is their occupation, are they married and with children or are they single, where do they live, are they single, or do they belong to a family group, what is their regular income level, what is their style of living, and what is their spare time occupation, and what are their outside interests, how do they feel motivated and what in fact motivates them generally. When answers to all or some of these questions are obtained, then the first step towards creating a target market for the product or service has been taken.

Any marketing plan must have as its primary aim the plan of not only attracting large numbers of customers, but also in keeping them loyal to the particular brand that is being promoted by the company, and, most important of all, to expand the number of customers by keeping up the interest in old customers and by bringing in new customers who would stay with the company's products for a long period of time. Therefore, the marketing plan must include as its elements the four P's, which are namely the Product, the Price, the Place, and the Promotion. The Product can be described through the point-of-view of the customer, and when the analysis on the target customer base reveals certain peculiarities or a certain type of customer, then the product can be described in such a manner that these special types of customers would be attracted to the product or service. The plan can also describe the USP of the product to the proposed customer, which in other words means the specialty of the particular product that this product is in possession of and which no other similarly priced or made product can boast of possessing.

Therefore, this product is unique, and the customer must be made aware of this fact when the product is being sold to him. The description of Place must also be made from the point-of-view of the customer, and the advantages described as seen from his perspective, like for example, the accessibility of the place to the customer, the security offered within, its aesthetic appeal, and so on, so that the customer is inclined to be attracted to the place of the product. The Pricing of the product can defer to the pricing of a similar product made by a competitor, and the prices of both can be compared. Pricing must also be based on the retail costs of the product, the various labor costs and the labor costs, etc. The final price must be neither too much above that of the competition nor too much below that of the competition.

It must be in line with that of the competition, and that of the industry averages. For the purpose of Promotion, the various media that are available can be used to promote the product. These may be the print media that includes newspapers and magazines and the classifieds, the advertising media that would create advertisements that highlight the numerous advantages of the product in an extremely attractive manner, and the various other methods of promotion like the printing of business cards, and the distribution of tee-shirts and other similar mementos with the name of the company and the product that is being promoted emblazoned on it.

A marketing plan may help to sell a company's product better and improve the sales figures for the company, but there are a few disadvantages in creating such a plan. The primary disadvantage is that the inherent weaknesses of the writer of the plan and the company that wants to use such a plan are revealed to the public, as well as to the competitor, and this can be very well avoided. When the data that has been collected in the making of the plan is improperly analyzed, it will lead to the company making wrong decisions based on the faulty analyses. The financial projections outlined in the marketing plan may also lead to unrealistic expectations, again depending on the incorrect reading of the accumulated and presented data. However, the advantages of writing a marketing plan are numerous, like for example, the determination of accurate demand for the product, the assessment of the targeted customer, the ways and means of turning out a definite profit for the company, and the ways and means of widening the customer base and also inducing loyalty in the customer in a way that would allow the customer to only choose from the products that this company makes, and so on. The idea is to allow the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages so that the ultimate result of profit generation is achieved without too much of trouble.

In the creation of a marketing plan for an organization that would promote profits, the new and the latest concept of 'lateral thinking' may be used to better the plan. What is lateral thinking and how is it done. Lateral thinking is actually the manner in which a problem can be tackled. When the problem is tackled from many sides instead of handling it head-on, then it is known as lateral thinking. By using the method of lateral thinking, an employee can be turned into an enterprising entrepreneur, whereby he will use his own creative skills that are within him to develop newer and more powerful strategies that would improve the profits of the organization for which he is working. The conventional thinking methods are being changed according to the needs of today's world, and the modern day leader of today needs to keep pace with the quick paced and at times discontinuous changes taking place on an everyday basis within the organization. The skills of the entire creative group are honed by this method of thinking. The team that is involved in the writing of the marketing plan is encouraged for their creative and innovation skills, and their capacity for taking risks. The lateral team leader starts off by initiating lateral thinking himself, so that the others below him may follow.

Paul Sloane, the leader in Marketing development skills and an innovator of lateral thinking techniques, is of the opinion that an individual who is able to use the method of lateral thinking for the benefit of his company will eventually be an innovative leader who will be able to build up a team of highly inspired employees who will through the process of lateral thinking be able to find the creativity within themselves and make good use of it in order to generate profit for the company. When an individual desires to learn the process of lateral thinking, he can start with trying to solve the lateral thinking puzzles that have been created by Paul Sloane. These are puzzles that can have more than one solution to the given problem, and the puzzle is a progression of clues and pieces of information that can be fitted together in many different ways to solve the puzzle.

The user learns to use his creative thinking to try and solve the puzzle. One example is the puzzle of the man in the elevator. This man lives on the tenth floor of an apartment building and takes an elevator to go down to the ground floor when he wants to shop or go for work, etc. when he returns, however, despite the fact that he hates to walk, he gets off at the seventh floor, and walks up the rest of the way. Why would he do such a thing? This is one of the better-known lateral thinking puzzles, and there can be many solutions indeed for such a simple mystery. The most popular and satisfying solution is that the man is a dwarf!

Another innovative way of thinking and planning is the 'critical thinking' method. Critical thinking is the identification and the assessment of all the evidence needed in order to make a proper decision. The critical analyses the evidence available in a thorough and complete manner and presents his thinking extremely clearly and precisely. These are the inherent traits of a critical thinker. This person is also a bright and creative and innovative and receptive to external stimulation and ideas.

Critical thinking is also known as 'informal logic' in some cases. If 'logic' can be defined as the process of drawing inferences from a set of subjects, then logic has in fact been in existence as far back as the Neanderthals. If logic were to be defined as the assessment and analysis of the different concepts that are used in order to derive inferences from, then it has been in existence as far back as from the time of Aristotle. It was towards the end of the nineteenth century that mathematicians started to revive interest in logic when they wanted to find a link between logical reasoning and mathematical concepts. This led to the division of the concept of logic into two, one being the symbolic or formal logic, and the other being the informal logic or what is popularly known as critical thinking.

In logical thinking, the emphasis is on the exact and precise representation of facts through symbols, and the study of these symbols is based on a linking between the various concepts. In critical thinking, the emphasis is on the use of logical ideas and concepts to everyday thinking in real life. Symbolic logic can also be used in these interpretations, but this is not very often done; it is only used in cases where pictorial representations would help in solving the problem. Informal logic or critical thinking, on the other hand, uses the concept of reasoning power to discover the truth. In other words, this means that the truth can be inferred in the inferences that can be reached when critical thinking is applied. This means that one or more statements can be made from the inferences from one single true statement. When a person wants and desires to learn the truth, then he can use the concept of logical reasoning and arrive at one point at the truth, as we know it.

Thus truth can be defined as the basic principle that makes our lives worth living. The truth gives a person a basic control over his own destiny, and it is something that he can grasp onto when he is feeling confused. Most people in their day-to-day real lives and daily activities tend to speak a large amount of truth, and a large number of statements are made based on this truth. Sometimes, people make certain statements that are a plea to make others notice the statement and get them to accept it as the truth. This sort of mixing up is called the 'peddling of truth', and those who have been targeted for these peddled truths are known as the 'consumers of the statement'. The context in which this statement has been made and the context in which the customer accepts it is referred to as the 'context of persuasion' or the 'propositional marketplace'. In simple terms, the entire peddled statement episode can be described thus: when someone wants somebody to believe in something that the original person is trying to say, someone being the peddler of the truth, the something being the peddled statement, and somebody is the consumer of the statement.

This sort of logic is used in making a marketing plan in a professional manner, where the writer of the plan makes the peddling statement, and the consumer to whom the person is trying to sell his product or service consumes the statement. The success of the peddling statement that has been made by the critical thinker depends on the ways and means in which he is able to apply pressures of persuasion on to himself in such a manner that his internal thinking is also influenced by this external thinking. For example, when a person thinks about the presentation that he has to make on a particular Friday, related thoughts automatically creep into his mind, like the fact that he has not prepared well for it, or that he has toad on a few more facts to it, and so on. There are numerous ways in which a peddler peddles his statements, though not all may be true.

The question that arises at this juncture is whether the consumer would believe that the peddled statement is true and therefore believes the peddler, or would the consumer not fall for the peddled statement just because he recognizes it as not being true. The answer is yes, the consumer would buy it even if it were not true, if, for one, the peddler is able to show that it is true in comparison to other statements that the consumer knows as being the truth, and also if the peddler shows that the statement could probably be true. There are two types of peddlers, political and philosophical. The philosophical peddler takes up the job of making the consumer to agree to the statement by showing him the truth of the same statement.

The type of peddler who just wants the consumer to agree to his statement, whether it is true or not, is the political peddler, and this is the sort of peddler who enjoys power and control, unlike the philosophical one who is most agreeable and would like the satisfaction of the consumer more than his own sense of power. A collection of statements is called an 'argument', and the statements made in support of the other statements are called 'premises' and the statement that is being supported is the 'conclusion'. When a peddler is presenting his statements, he is also at the same time trying to prove the truthfulness of it and this is called 'justification'. These form the main phases of critical thinking and the manner in which a marketing plan can be stated from start to finish.

When alternative thinking is desired the concept of 'counterfactuals' must be understood. This means that these are actually thoughts that offer alternatives to something that has already had a particular outcome, and this is an alternative to it. Counterfactual thinking is seen in the often made statement: 'if only I had done it this way ant that'. The 'if' here denotes a 'conditional proposition' and what may have been, and counterfactual statements are actually nothing but alternate thoughts, where alternative outcomes and results become much better than what the actual outcome has been. The field of marketing planning and strategy finds the concept of counterfactual thinking especially beneficial since this means that the consumer can be made to believe that what he had happened to buy or use earlier is not as good as what this particular company is offering to sell to him, and if he had bought it earlier, he would have been very happy and satisfied. Therefore, the next step is for him to buy the product that this company is selling, so that the 'what if' part of his thinking is satisfied. This is nothing but a play on the emotions of the consumer but if it works, then why not use it?